The history of the development of the _palmette_ (or honeysuckle), the _lotos-flower and bud_, and of continuous foliated patterns in general, has been skilfully treated by Riegl.[2039] To write a complete account of this class of ornamentation would be impossible within the limits of the present work; only a few main features can be noted, to show the form the patterns assume at different periods, so universal is their appearance on vases of all shapes and dates. The lotos-flower or bud is, of course, a motive of purely Oriental origin, which found its way into Greece probably through the medium of Phoenicia; the palmette, on the other hand, is purely Greek, although it may possibly be derived from a Mycenaean prototype, the _Vallisneria spiralis plant_, which is so frequently found on Mycenaean vases (Fig. 158).[2040] They are found not only as single motives, isolated or repeated, but also combined together, or forming part of elaborate systems of floral ornament, with stems and tendrils often conventionalised, which link them together, either in continuous bands or in groups occupying a limited space, on the neck or under the handle. [Illustration: FIG. 158. VALLISNERIA SPIRALIS (MYCENAEAN).] [Illustration: FIG. 159. LOTOS-FLOWER ON CYPRIOTE VASE.] In the Graeco-Phoenician pottery of Cyprus the lotos-flower often appears in a purely Egyptian form (Fig. 159, from C 165 in B.M.), but it is more often combined with and almost merged in some elaborate system of patterns too complicated to describe or define by any name.[2041] But in Greek vase-paintings, in which it first makes its appearance in the seventh century, it is always more or less conventional. It is thus found on the Melian amphorae in combination with systems of spirals[2042]; though on the shoulder of the example given by Riegl there occurs a band of lotos-flowers alternately upright and inverted, linked together by scrolls, where the form is almost that of Egyptian art, except that the cup of the flower is rounder, the petals shorter and blunter. It is obviously as yet in the transitional stage. Next we meet with it in the vases of Ionia, especially in those of the so-called Rhodian and earlier Naukratite styles, which have friezes of lotos-flowers alternating with closed buds or with palmettes, connected by tendrils (Fig. 160). A similar pattern, on an exceptionally large scale and treated in polychrome (white and purple), surrounds the lower portion of the body on several of the later Caeretan hydriae (cf. Plate XXVI.). But in most of the fabrics of the sixth century the bud seems to have been preferred to the open flower of the ornament.[2043] Rows of lotos-buds linked by tendrils, upright or inverted, are found on the Cyrenaic cups, on the vases of the Chalcidian type, and on the later Ionic fabrics, such as the Rhodian kylikes in the British Museum (B 379–81). Sometimes, too, a single bud appears in the design itself, overhanging the scene or rising from the ground.